Application/System

To support VT Facilities Services in this aim, to help build community around Virginia Tech, and to engage community members in casual interaction to facilitate a feeling of ownership of and belonging to the university, we will design (the interaction for) an Art Jukebox. The primary users will be diners in Virginia Tech dining halls, patrons of Virginia Tech recreation centers, and students in their respective Department’s public spaces.

Concept Statement

Art Jukebox (AJ) is a distributed presentation system, that will be installed in dining areas, recreation centers, and departmental public spaces at VT. Patrons will engage and interact with each other by contributing different media, from the web or their own collections,which AJ will display. Each area (particular recreation centers, dining halls, etc.) will have a “network” of display thats will enable multiple individuals to enjoy the same content. Much like a jukebox, users will make their request for content and the system will schedule the media that it will display. However, for AJ, the requests are made via web-enabled devices. Audience members can vote / indicate they like certain content which will have affect on current and future scheduling. Art jukebox builds community while providing patrons an opportunity to entertain themselves and each other.

Technical Summary

Description

There will be multiple instances of Art Jukebox (AJ) around Virginia Tech to serve multiple micro-communities; however, for clarity we will describe only one, to be located in D2 Dining Hall, in this summary. In D2, AJ will be composed of two large, projected displays, situated on either side of the the middle division.There will also be one, mounted, tablet device at each table, and additionally one mounted beside each large display for submitting content. The large displays will only support playback. The tablets will support submission of content as well as display and voting.

Features

Content Submission and Display Request

Users will use the AJ app on one of the provided tablets or their own device to submit content (via upload or URL). The system will store all content submissions so that future requests might re-submit previously enjoyed content.

Display Options

Each display will have a progress meter for the current content. Images will be displayed for a set amount of time, media that has inherent length will be displayed for its duration. A hide-able indicator will show the number of votes for or against the current content and there will be controls to mute and to vote.

Content Popularity

Since content uploaded will be viewed by everyone, content popularity will be decided based on the number for votes received by the audience. Audience members can vote (like or dislike) while the current content is playing from a provided tablet or their own device. Content that receives many number of dislikes will stop playing and the next in the queue will get its turn. If there are no content requests in the queue currently, the most popular content (most likes) will be played by AJ until a new request arrives.